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Michael J Hardy
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:16 am
Post subject: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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What we Leftpondians call an "apartment" and the French
call (I think) "un apartement", the British seem to call
a "flat". But the British speak of the queen's "apartments"
within one of her palaces, and recently in the news media
we have read about the papal "apartments" in Vatican City.
Do the British use the word "apartments" only for the
residences of very august personages, and do they use only
the plural? -- Mike Hardy |
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Matthew Huntbach
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 3:17 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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On Fri, 22 Apr 2005, Michael J Hardy wrote:
| Quote: | What we Leftpondians call an "apartment" and the French
call (I think) "un apartement", the British seem to call
a "flat". But the British speak of the queen's "apartments"
within one of her palaces, and recently in the news media
we have read about the papal "apartments" in Vatican City.
Do the British use the word "apartments" only for the
residences of very august personages, and do they use only
the plural? -- Mike Hardy
|
My feelings on this usage is that a "flat" is a self-contained
residence on one level in a block of such residences. It would
have its own front door leading to a communal passageway.
"Apartments" however refer to something which is less self-contained -
living spaces attached to a larger building which may not consist
entirely of such "apartments" and which do not have a separate front
door leading to a communal area.
However, the USA usage may well be encountered in Britain these days
to mean what we would previously have called "flats" because it
sounds a lot more up-market.
Matthew Huntbach |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:02 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Andrew Gwilliam wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 07:38:10 -0700, John Dawkins wrote:
In article <4268fd60$0$38044$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>,
Andrew Gwilliam <bottomless_pit@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
Is "bedsit" used in AmE?
No. (What does it mean?)
It's a very small flat that, aside from a kitchen (or kitchen area) and a
bathroom, only has one room. It's short for bed-sitting room (because it
combines the functions of a bedroom and a sitting room).
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Corresponding terms in AmE include "studio" and "efficiency".
--
I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
- Alvy Singer |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:05 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Michael J Hardy wrote:
| Quote: | What we Leftpondians call an "apartment" and the French
call (I think) "un apartement", the British seem to call
a "flat". But the British speak of the queen's "apartments"
within one of her palaces, and recently in the news media
we have read about the papal "apartments" in Vatican City.
Do the British use the word "apartments" only for the
residences of very august personages, and do they use only
the plural? -- Mike Hardy
|
The "apartments" of these august personages may or may not be flats:
a flat is on one floor, while the royal or papal apartments may or
may not contain stairs. It's still not unknown for a single room to
be referred to as an "apartment", usually in a dignified context.
I've noticed of recent years a tendency for British people to call
flats "apartments" if they are in other countries: I think this
echoes estate-agent-speak. Annoying, but there you go.
--
Mike. |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:20 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Tony Cooper wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 16:27:40 +0100, Andrew Gwilliam
bottomless_pit@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
On 22 Apr 2005 08:02:48 -0700, R H Draney wrote:
Andrew Gwilliam filted:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 07:38:10 -0700, John Dawkins wrote:
In article <4268fd60$0$38044$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>,
Andrew Gwilliam <bottomless_pit@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
Is "bedsit" used in AmE?
No. (What does it mean?)
It's a very small flat that, aside from a kitchen (or kitchen area) and a
bathroom, only has one room. It's short for bed-sitting room (because it
combines the functions of a bedroom and a sitting room).
It would usually be associated with single mothers, students, and the
low-paid.
Approximate AmE equivalent: "studio apartment"....r
To my BrE ears that sounds like something a yuppie would live in.
To my mind, too. If I read a line in the beginning of a book that
reads: "He returned to his bedsit and sat down to write his mother."
I start picturing the character as a person with a low income. If the
line reads "He returned to his studio apartment and sat down to write
his mother.", I start imagining the person as at least somewhat
affluent.
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Might depend on the culture of the locality. In New York, where I think
"studio" may have originated or be in greatest use, it doesn't imply
affluence (or poverty -- it's just a one-room apartment. "Efficiency" to
me implies lack of affluence -- so it may be closer to "bedsit".
A true yuppie in New York wouldn't settle for anything less than a
one-bedroom apartment (back when I was a false yuppie I had a studio).
--
I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
- Alvy Singer |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:24 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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"Michael J Hardy" <mjhardy@mit.edu> wrote in message
news:42685bd1$0$558$b45e6eb0@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu...
| Quote: | What we Leftpondians call an "apartment" and the French
call (I think) "un apartement", the British seem to call
a "flat". But the British speak of the queen's "apartments"
within one of her palaces, and recently in the news media
we have read about the papal "apartments" in Vatican City.
Do the British use the word "apartments" only for the
residences of very august personages, and do they use only
the plural? -- Mike Hardy
|
The record of usage in the OED may be helpful.
The word has more than one meaning as is common
iin the English language. All meanings seem to be
traceable to the idea of a single building (structure)
partitioned into two or more family dwellings. The
core idea also applies to large public structures like palaces,
which may be partitioned into private (living) and public
(working or institutional) spaces.
Flat connotes no stairs, viz. all on one level -- which seems
statistically common in commercial mass dwellings but
not universal, cf. the large multistorey apartments of the
very wealthy, which occupants would probably not call
flats.
To suggest smallness, Britain also coined flatlet, a
word not found in the USA.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:27 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Andrew Gwilliam wrote:
| Quote: | Incidentally, some places have shared kitchen facilities.
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I think if something doesn't have its own kitchen it can't be an
"apartment". It's just a "room".
--
I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
- Alvy Singer |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:01 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Andrew Gwilliam wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 15:02:28 +0000 (UTC), Areff wrote:
Andrew Gwilliam wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 07:38:10 -0700, John Dawkins wrote:
In article <4268fd60$0$38044$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>,
Andrew Gwilliam <bottomless_pit@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
Is "bedsit" used in AmE?
No. (What does it mean?)
It's a very small flat that, aside from a kitchen (or kitchen area) and a
bathroom, only has one room. It's short for bed-sitting room (because it
combines the functions of a bedroom and a sitting room).
Corresponding terms in AmE include "studio" and "efficiency".
Seeing "efficiencies" on signs always puzzled me when I was over on your
side of the pond.
|
Puzzled me too the first time I consciously saw it used -- when I was in
college, there was an on-campus (i.e., university-owned) apartment
building for students that had, inter alia, "efficiencies". The term is
not, in general, used in New York (LCIA), where "studio" is standard
regardless of humbleness of the apartment. If there's some operative
distinction between studio and efficiency (other than the first one
sounding more grandiose), I'm not aware of it.
When I "moved" to Chicago (TLCIA) and looked for an apartment therein, one
odd thing I noticed right away was a weird new category of apartment called
"convertible". This was essentially what in New York would be a large
and/or "L-shaped" studio, capable, based on size and/or layout, of being
converted into something like a one-bedroom (e.g. by way of a make-shift
door or barrier separating a bedroom space from the rest of the living
space). Not used in New York (LCIA).
| Quote: | Incidentally, AusE also has "unit", which is approximately equivalent to
BrE "purpose-built flat".
|
"Unit" is used to mean "apartment" in some AmE contexts. I think it's
generally a way of avoiding the term "apartment".
--
I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
- Alvy Singer |
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Andrew Gwilliam
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:34 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 08:24:48 -0400, Don Phillipson wrote:
| Quote: | "Michael J Hardy" <mjhardy@mit.edu> wrote in message
news:42685bd1$0$558$b45e6eb0@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu...
What we Leftpondians call an "apartment" and the French
call (I think) "un apartement", the British seem to call
a "flat". But the British speak of the queen's "apartments"
within one of her palaces, and recently in the news media
we have read about the papal "apartments" in Vatican City.
Do the British use the word "apartments" only for the
residences of very august personages, and do they use only
the plural? -- Mike Hardy
The record of usage in the OED may be helpful.
The word has more than one meaning as is common
iin the English language. All meanings seem to be
traceable to the idea of a single building (structure)
partitioned into two or more family dwellings. The
core idea also applies to large public structures like palaces,
which may be partitioned into private (living) and public
(working or institutional) spaces.
Flat connotes no stairs, viz. all on one level -- which seems
statistically common in commercial mass dwellings but
not universal, cf. the large multistorey apartments of the
very wealthy, which occupants would probably not call
flats.
To suggest smallness, Britain also coined flatlet, a
word not found in the USA.
|
Is "bedsit" used in AmE?
--
Andrew Gwilliam
To email me, replace "bottomless_pit" with "silverhelm" |
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Andrew Gwilliam
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:39 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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On 22 Apr 2005 02:05:05 GMT, Michael J Hardy wrote:
| Quote: | What we Leftpondians call an "apartment" and the French
call (I think) "un apartement", the British seem to call
a "flat". But the British speak of the queen's "apartments"
within one of her palaces, and recently in the news media
we have read about the papal "apartments" in Vatican City.
Do the British use the word "apartments" only for the
residences of very august personages, and do they use only
the plural? -- Mike Hardy
|
If one thinks of Buckingham Palace, it's worth remembering that this is not
just a very large house that the Queen lives in, in the way that you or I
would live in a house. There will be state rooms for receiving official
visitors and for functions; there will be offices for the Queen and members
of her staff; there may well be living quarters for members of her
household staff; there will be security facilities; etc, etc. The area of
the palace that the Queen actually "lives" in are her apartments; I'm not
sure if it would also include her private office.
--
Andrew Gwilliam
To email me, replace "bottomless_pit" with "silverhelm" |
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Andrew Gwilliam
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:42 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:17:55 +0100, Matthew Huntbach wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 22 Apr 2005, Michael J Hardy wrote:
What we Leftpondians call an "apartment" and the French
call (I think) "un apartement", the British seem to call
a "flat". But the British speak of the queen's "apartments"
within one of her palaces, and recently in the news media
we have read about the papal "apartments" in Vatican City.
Do the British use the word "apartments" only for the
residences of very august personages, and do they use only
the plural? -- Mike Hardy
My feelings on this usage is that a "flat" is a self-contained
residence on one level in a block of such residences. It would
have its own front door leading to a communal passageway.
"Apartments" however refer to something which is less self-contained -
living spaces attached to a larger building which may not consist
entirely of such "apartments" and which do not have a separate front
door leading to a communal area.
However, the USA usage may well be encountered in Britain these days
to mean what we would previously have called "flats" because it
sounds a lot more up-market.
|
I currently live in what an estate agent would describe as a "duplex
apartment". Most people would call it a "flat", but because it has its own
entrance onto the street, and is split over more than one floor, I tend to
call it a house. If you can picture a townhouse that's been raised one
storey and had a ground-floor flat put underneath it, you have the idea.
--
Andrew Gwilliam
To email me, replace "bottomless_pit" with "silverhelm" |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:45 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Andrew Gwilliam wrote:
[R H Draney:]
| Quote: | Approximate AmE equivalent: "studio apartment"....r
To my BrE ears that sounds like something a yuppie would live in.
[...]
It was the phrase "studio apartment", as distinguished from "studio". But
it could be idiolectal.
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They're synonyms.
--
I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
- Alvy Singer |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:47 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 14:34:23 +0100, Andrew Gwilliam
<bottomless_pit@southernskies.co.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | Is "bedsit" used in AmE?
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Never by an American to an American.
Nor is "rooms". We can speak of renting a room, but we don't rent
rooms or have rooms.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando FL |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:48 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Tony Cooper wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 15:02:28 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net
wrote:
[re BrE "bedsit"]
Corresponding terms in AmE include "studio" and "efficiency".
I dunno about that. There's a "cheap accommodation" connotation to
"bedsit" that isn't present in "studio" or "efficiency". It's the
same connotation that we get from "rooming house" as compared to a
house that has been converted to small units.
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I'm not sure about that, Coop. "Efficiency" for me does imply "cheap
accommodation", and to a lesser extent that's true of "studio" (if only
because it will typically be the cheapest kind of apartment available
within a locality). I can imagine "luxury studio" in an advertisement,
but "luxury efficiency" seems oxymoronic, almost.
Rooming house, however, would refer to a lower stratum of accommodation
than the BrE "bedsit", as I understand it, unless bedsits are generally
crummier than I'd been led to believe. If bedsits typically do not have
kitchens (or have shared kitchen/bathroom/lavatory facilities), then yes,
perhaps "rooming house" is closer.
--
I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
- Alvy Singer |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:54 pm
Post subject: Re: "apartments" in England and the Vatican |
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Andrew Gwilliam wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 16:27:07 +0000 (UTC), Areff wrote:
Andrew Gwilliam wrote:
Incidentally, some places have shared kitchen facilities.
I think if something doesn't have its own kitchen it can't be an
"apartment". It's just a "room".
We were talking about bedsits. They could still have their own bathroom
even if they didn't have their own kitchen.
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Okay, so it seems that some bedsits are apartments, and some aren't, by my
AmE way of thinking. Or, rather, some are "substandard apartments", since
at a minimum any apartment *should* have a kitchen.
| Quote: | If someone shared a house, then they'd have a "room".
|
True in AmE too, in general.
--
I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
- Alvy Singer |
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